About
Nemo Nonnenmacher explores the shifting boundary between organic life and machine-made worlds. Through photography in its expanded sense, simulations and sculpture, he investigates how digital tools and virtual experiences shape not only what we see, but how we understand the world and ourselves within it.
Using processes such as 3D scanning, photogrammetry, laser cutting, and virtual simulation, Nemo treats digital systems less as means of reproduction and more as generative collaborators: when gestures are mediated through algorithms, materials are processed in ways that erase the human hand, and when landscapes are experienced as datasets or rendered backdrops and one-sided theatre stages.
He is interested in what is lost and what is generated when this translation takes place, when meaning is shaped not through touch, but through algorithms, presets, and grid-based systems. The resulting works oscillate between presence and distance, physical and remote, sensory and systemic.
Nemo is drawn to the poetic potential of these in-between states. A simulation may reflect a real weather system, yet its plants don’t wither, and its animals don’t flee. A laser-engraved surface might resemble a bark’s cellular structure, while also hinting at early scripts or forgotten languages.
In these moments, the line between observation and invention blurs. Across different media, the works question how contemporary tools not only simulate but reshape physical realities. In this space between touch and automation, presence and proxy, he searches for a language that reflects our increasingly hybrid relationship with the world.
Nemo Nonnenmacher (b. 1988, Duisburg, Germany) is a visual artist based in Athens, working mainly between the UK, Germany and Greece.
He holds an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art in London, as well as a BA in Photography from the University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Dortmund. His works are exhibited internationally.
He has been an Artist in Residence at various institutions including CYENS (Nicosia, Cyprus, 2022), Outset Contemporary Art Fund (London, UK, 2018), Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop/Summer Hall (Edinburgh, UK, 2019), and Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop (London, UK, 2018).
He has been a scholarship recipient of the German National Academic Foundation and received work stipends from the Stiftung Kunstfonds, as well as the Ministry of Arts and Sciences North Rhine-Westphalia.